One Virgin, Many Deaths

A Stageplay

By Geoff Adeleye (Nigeria)

Act 1, Scene 3

                                  ACT I

                            Scene III

                  ACT I                                                                                           SC III
BADEJA: I wish it were a more laborious task.
RENATE: What a greater constraining force! By now your neck must be
   straining.
BADEJA: Do not mind. Love strengthens me. And if not for the farm I
   want to go, I’m much ready to carry it to your doorstep; and if you so
   desire I forgo it at once!
RENATE: That’ll be too much for me to bear! [BADEJA lowers it on her
                                                                                                              head]
BADEJA: But can I drop in on you?
RENATE: Yes, you can. You’re free as air in the open field. [turns to go
BADEJA: Bye!
RENATE [waves at him]: I shall be expecting you. [Exit RENATE
BADEJA [glued to the spot, being awestruck of her impression]: The
   whole event hooked in mystique, but I’m convinced it’s never fictitious
   because I was involved. Though my pities constrain me, I shan’t see
   them antics; I’m ready to avow to the world my intent, and whatever
   it pay off maybe, shall be braved.   

                                     Scene III
                         A room at BELARU’s house.  
                  Enter BELARU and SADALO
SADALO: Sir, I least expect this from you – if you’ve backed out I think
   I should be apprised of. I detest this treacherous act!
BELARU: Son, you’re missing a point.
SADALO: Hold it there, sir!
BELARU: What’s wrong with you?
SADALO: Don’t you know that the whole process is supposed to have
   been moped up?
BELARU: As I’d told you, you’re missing a point. Issue of this kind
   doesn’t go off without a hitch. So getting beefed because it hasn’t
   been done and dusted is to be iniquitous.
SADALO: Rubbish! Rubbish!
BELARU: Don’t flare up, it’ a big ask; and it’s got to have its gestation
   stretched.
SADALO Never! I can’t take that from you! I can see – logistically, 
   you’re ducking out of it!

ACT I                                                                       SC III
BELARU: It’s really giving me hell.
SADALO: So you’ve backtracked? Oh! How did I, in the first place, strike
   a deal with you of grotty self? You’re a traitor!
BELARU: Be warned. You’re becoming lippy.
SADALO: No! I’m just expressing my chagrin.
BELLARU: Look, you mightn’t accede to this; I’ve set big store by it. No
   doubt I’m burning my life on it.
SADALO: Burning your life? It sounds coruscating! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
BELARU: It’s hardly mendacious.
SADALO: Big lie, please!
BELARU: You’re getting ruder.
SADALO: You set the scene. I won’t tolerate you blowing me out.
BELARU: I often tell you, not everything runs like clockwise.
SADALO: Your problem, as I’ve discovered, is that you like simian
   reflexes.
BELARU: You bore me silly.
SADALO: That’s just the consequence of your desultory, flabby approach
   to the matter.
BELARU: Look, in a couple of shakes, things will change.
SADALO: Can I still trust you?
BELARU: You’re getting the wrong end of the stick. I know what ails
   for me. It has all been a pig of a struggle.
SADALO: I hate all these nonsensical pretexts.
BELARU: I fit to drop, let’s call it off.
SADALO: Never!  We can’t!
BELARU: You shouted at me as if I were a kid – oh, I’d stuck in my
   head – no choice – no escape!
SADALO: It’s the levity with which you you’re handling it.
BELARU: You see, things are turning tangle, there are vagaries which
   are proving too clustered for comprehension.
SADALO: I don’t undermine your effort. It’s your mundane nature that
   threatens my trust in you; since by it, it’s inscrutable to divine what
   lies in store. 
BELARU: To you it might seem I’ve fluffed, but giving it a closer
   consideration I haven’t.
SADALO: Anyway, I hope for the best. Sir, on my way to farm this
   morning, I shot down a squirrel.

ACT I                                                                                         SC III
BELARU [delighted]: Wonderful! I trust you. No man shoots better!
SADALO [opens his bag, brings it out]: You can have it, sir.
BELARU [collects]: Smoked dry! [lifts high into air] Best in okra soup!
   [smiles broadly] Son, tell me, who says you won’t get marry to her?
   I’ll surely bring down their heads in a single strike! Even the gods
   can’t make a crack, if they do, I’ll dismantle their shrine! It’s now
   real business. Blow for blow! Fire for fire!
SADALO: This is serious! I think I can trust you now! Please, always
   put me remembrance and fight squarely for my interest. [Exit SADALO
BELARU [admiring the squirrel]: He isn’t a man to be trifled with. I
   shall parade him before the whole world until they shall stand up
   and say, behold the Hobson’s choice! Having my favourite meat at
   ease is wonder. The guy is a too good an angel!
                                     Enter YEMELU
   [quickly hides it, now coughing, To YEMELU] Must you enter
   the house without knocking?[YEMELU looks away, feigning not having
                                                                                  him hiding the meat]
YEMELU: Dear!
BELARU [frowns at her]: Is that the answer to my question?
YEMELU: Sir, this’s our house, and we haven’t been knocking before
   we enter. We intrude upon it at will. I guess you want to raise dust
   from mud.
BELARU: I’m getting modernized, and things must by all means change.
YEMELU: You’re taking it too far.
 BELARU: If I’m not, how can I counteract your civilized child? Tell
   me, if it’s courteous or social to enter a house, yours or not
   without knocking in this present time, you stone age thing.
YEMELU: Stop using the language your daughter uses on you on me.
   If you aren’t at evil, I haven’t committed a crime doing so because that
   is how we have been living.
BELARU: Isn’t it unsocial to walk in on one having one’s privacy, as
   you did to me?
YEMELU: Husband and wife must be privy to whatever they do or
   are doing.
BELARU [annoyed]: your argument exudes absurdity. It’s only when
   they agree, now that we’re in dissension, some privacy is necessary.
YEMELU: Who taught you all this wild idea? Is it your daughter?
BELARU: Prove me wrong!

ACT I                                                                                       SC III
YEMELU: Sir, further argument could be warlike, so let’s waive our
   right, opinion, philosophy and what have you in the interest of peace
   and love. [grins] What a great fortune we’d had today! [trying to sit
   beside him] 
BELARU [shifts to one side, shouts]: Don’t sit beside me.
YEMELU: Why?
BELARU: I’m consecrated  to Elejiobi, the gods, and I must be
    distanced from all men for a while.
YEMELU: Never in this fashion!
BELARU: Yes, things have changed.
YEMELU: Perhaps the gods are getting modernized too. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
BELARU: Will you mock them?
YEMELU: That’s intriguing. Look, a monk never commits a crime having
   sex, even in monastery! How can my sitting beside you pollute
   you, sanctimonious saint?
BELARU [becomes suspicious]: Can’t you excuse me? I soon call on
   you. Do you hear?
YEMELU: I’m not going anywhere!
BELARU: Just for thirty minutes, please.
YEMELU: Sir, some meat smells! I’ve got to search it.
BELARU [realizing that she has known he’s hiding  meat,
    strictly rebuking her]: Can’t anything be done without your
    knowledge dog-nose? Better, you were made a dog. I’m not a kid;
    I wonder how you breathe down my neck.
YEMELU [lets out lively smile]: We mustn’t fight, must we?
BELARU [angrily brings it out]: This’s it. You can’t taste it.
YEMELU: Sir, your animus live on too long, simply because I say,
   Sadalo doesn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance, and this fact is true.
BELARU: Stop being a disturbance. Let me alone with my meat. And
   if you must eat meat at all cost, please, notify your cloth man and leave
   off this incendiary nagging.
YEMELU: No! He isn’t a hunter.
BELARU: Ha!  Ha! Ha!  Ha! I’m not really sure you want to eat meat.
YEMELU: Certainly, I do.
BELARU: You’ve got to purchase him a gun and if he lacks guts for
   such expedition; then you must be ready to be his amour bearer.

ACT I                                                                                              SC III
YEMELU: I never knew that Sadalo is such a brilliant hunter, presuming
   him to be only a mere farmer.
BELARRU [sniggers]: It’s time like this you’re sobered, corrigible –
   it’s rowdily absorbing! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
YEMELU: Shall we continue in derision and abuse, and not in love
   and care?
BELARU:  There’s one solution to this – dissolved your opposition,
   and be no more adamant to give in to me, then, you shall have right
   and share.
YEMELU: That’s, if get you right, to realign myself with you.
BELARU: Good! Now, you’re talking sense.
YEMELU: But it must go with something.
BELARU [releases himself to the backrest, exhales heavily, rubs his
   face through]: Look, if your alignment as you said, is conditional on
   this meat, it’s unacceptable because it’s specious, dangerous,
   shallow-rooted and deadly consequential.
YEMELU: That’s ill assumed! I’ve being in discord with you over the
   choice of Sadalo because I failed to work him out, pivoting
   my animosity on Torero’s interest, to have had the plenitude of
   personalities: now I’m valuing and buying them up.
BALERU [blissful]: Sadalo, as you see him, is peaceful,
   reasonable, mature, brave, doting, reliable, reliant, cool-headed; and
   he’s all the traits of any celebrities. Shouldn’t we adopt him?
YEMELU: Good recommendation!  I think we should. Please, a little
   of that meat.
BELARU: Look, the up swell of your interest in this meat is
   suspicious, and I must therefore be careful, at alert![hides under
   his armpit
YEMELU: That action is baneful, very unbecoming at this point.
BELARU: No, it fits the bills.[lifts it high into the air admiring it,
               suddenly YEMELU grasps it from his hand and runs to the door
YEMELU: Do you think you’re wise?
BELARU: No! [Begging] Please, give me my meat.
YEMELU: No way! [Belarus runs to hold her and she’s running out]
   Come after me then I’ll know that you’re a no nonsense chief.
BELARU [stops]: You know I am a chief, and that will crucify me.
YEMELU: Bye!                                                          [Exit YEMELU
                                                 

ACT I                                                                                       SC III
BELARU [cold with fear]: My meat! Ah, I’m going to die! [biting
   his fingers] I’ve made a mistake! No, I’m going to die! [sprawls on
   the sofa, and then falls down, rolling on the floor] Ah, my meat!
   My meat!
                              Re-enter YEMELU
YEMELU: Oh, what a big shame! A chief is rolling on the floor
   because of meat.
BELARU [sits up]: My meat, please!
YEMELU: Have your meat, vilest man on the earth.
BELARU [collects]: Welcome back, my meat! Madam, with gun, even
   toy gun, you’ll be the best gentleman on the highway! [examining the
   meat ] Not even a part of it is torn off! The praxis of your foibles
   appals me a lot.
YEMELU: Is it because I returned it to you that you insulted me?
BELARU: It’s necessary I flay you up because it might get into your
   head and you turn it to full-blown business.
YEMELU: I?
BELARU: Yes! Do the worst you could.
YEMELU: I’ve been fair to you. Where is my share?
BELARU: Are you ready to cave in?
YEMELU: Yes!
BELARU: Good! [tears a part] You can have this first.
YEMELU [collects, eats]: Oh, it’s very sweet and dry, pepper and salt
   to taste. He must be a good cook! What nutrient-packed meat! Just
   too nice. More, please.
BELARU [annoyed]: Take, steal, everything, big thief!
YEMELU: I’m very sorry, sir!
BELARU [tears her a bigger part]: If you want this kind of meat in
   your soup everyday, it’s a thing we can arrange.
YEMELU: For what?
BELARU: Supporting Sadalo.
YEMELU: No, I won’t.
BELARU: Eating his meat, you can’t mean it!
YEMELU: No way for him. [coughing]
BELARU [felt betrayed]: Die! Die! Traitor, die!

ACT I                                                                                         SC III
YEMELU [still coughing]: Let me die, your Sadalo can’t get married to
   my daughter.
BELARU: What! I’m flummoxed! How, soon, I’m afraid, you’ve sung
   a different tune! Noxious, disingenuous, you’re!
YEMELU: Call me anything you like, you’re free. I don’t care two hoots.
BELARU [furious, rises on his feet, darts like a cat to YEMELU] I
   order you now: begin to spew up every bit of the meat you’d eaten
   on your own accord, it’ll be remorseful if I made you do so.
YEMELU [cocky, unmoved]: Keep quiet! Your sabre-rattling is
   but a mere noise.
BELARU: I?
YEMELU [confidently]: Yes! [BELARU violently seizes her throat,
   she struggles in suffocation, and rattles away] Neieieieighbour
   I’m dying! [BELARU lets go off her] Truly, things have changed.
   You’re a murderer! [rests her head on the wall gasping breath
    heavily] So you’re murderous? I never knew! What a brute
   you’re! [greatly frightened, stamping feet on the floor] Oh’ my head!
   So I’d have been dead! It’s easier to die than to live! Your wife
   that cooks your food, the staunched companion from your youth,
   you wanted to murder because of meat which is just a windfall to
   be shared all round. However, you never told me then that you were
   a killer and that you would do for me a day as this.[breaks
   down profusely]
BELARU: Irresponsible hag! You’re old enough to die.  If you die
   I’ll only weep for some days, get over it and be happy again.
YEMELU: Remember then, when you were in love, when, you would
   be much ready to lick clean my anus?
BELARU: Smutty words! That’s poxy assertion.
YEMELU: So you’d be glad asphyxiated me, your wife, the mother
   of your children?
BELARU: No more rubbish in this house,
YEMELU: You’re a demon in an angel’s wear!
BELARU: If you don’t withdraw your opposition, it’ll be curtails for you.
YEMELU: You shan’t live it. Mesomorph, I dare your fists. Come over!
BELARU: You’re mad! Even the meat you didn’t allow me to taste
   it. You’re devilish! You’re everything evil! May God punish
   you.                                                                                 [Exit BELARU
YEMELU: Stupid man! Isn’t this all your modernization murdering
   your wife?                                                                          [sits stooped]

ACT I                                                                                                SC III
           Enter TODERO, strung up, paces high and low, mindless
   to ascertain what makes YEMELU sit stooped.
TODERO: Madam, you can’t rebut this claim. You’re playing games
   on me.[YEMELU shakes her head sorrowfully] Under your very
   nose, everything is turning hassle, with nothing being done to impede
   it. You’re a terrible disappointment. [YEMELU still not raises her
    head] Are you now dear or dumb? I pray this heart searching
   makes you suss the implication of this gruesome betrayal.
YEMELU [lifts her head, livid but poised, looks straight
   into his eyes, shakes her head again] You don’t speak better than a fool.
TODERO: I?
YEMELU: Yes! Your excoriation lacks vindication because by
   nothing you’ve been scourged. Don’t you know that somebody
   who went to school won’t be of supine stuff, you sloppy thing? I’ve
   been risking my neck all for you and if not for fortune I
   should’ve been as cold as ice, had it been her father was successful
   in bumping me off. Is it time to cavil, and not a moment of
   consolation and appreciation? [TODERO is prostrate, withdraws
   coldly] I’m surprised. With all I’ve suffered for you, you still find
   it comfortable stressing me out.
TODERO [slaps back]: What after much struggle without success?
    Hearing the suffering of war doesn’t count; it’s victory that moves.
YEMELU: Son, you’ve pulled a stunt, which could make me queer
   your pitch.
TODERO: Do the worst, you’re free!
YEMELU: Must we fight?
TODERO: We’ve got to if you’ll continue to refuse to take it with
   all gravitas.
YEMERU: Cheer up! Hope litters where passion strives!
TODERO: But your obtuse approach to it makes me fear.
YEMELU: Don’t be too anxious. I won’t relent because I’m
   deadly beleaguered.
TODERO: Madam, I don’t have the time. I’ve just contracted a deal;
   it needs my full attention. I’ve brought this cloth for you and her.
   [places a bag on the table]
YEMELU: Now I’m convinced you mean the business. [opens and
   looks into it] The latest so far!
  

ACT I                                                                                                  SC III
TODERO: My regards to her.                                               [Exit TODERO
YEMELU [delighted examining the cloth]: Oh, what grease that
   weakens this friction! What an ignorable bait before this fish! She
   can’t afford to forego it! I’ve got her!           [Exit YEMELU with the cloth